No signs? No problem, say those who have embraced Kamala Harris and a DIY attitude.
Homemade love and support: Creative Harris signs pop up all over Philly.
![Roxanne Veasley was in the car with her husband, jazz musician Gerald Veasley, when her 84-year-old mother, Jane Green, called to break the news that President Joe Biden was bowing out of the election. “Kamala’s gonna be president!” Green told her daughter. Veasley, with the help of her intern, Yvonne Grier, erected 30-inch blue lawn letters she ordered from Party City at $8 a pop to spell out KAMALA 2024 on her yard overlooking a a busy stretch of City Avenue.](https://www.inquirer.com/resizer/I8JPD2QQtoYbJj5a0m8m-te_hT8=/760x507/smart/filters:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/pmn/UVIKRN6P6JBYPHIOGUGURXXNKQ.jpg)
I spotted my first DIY Kamala Harris for President sign a few weeks ago while walking to the train in Chestnut Hill. A homeowner on West Willow Grove had not-so-subtly folded down Joe Biden’s name on their lawn sign after it had been rendered obsolete overnight, leaving only the “Harris” visible for all.
I was both tickled by the ingenuity and taken with how one little tuck could so perfectly illustrate our nation’s political fickleness. It was just 10 days after Biden dropped out of the race on July 21 and offered his endorsement of Harris as the new Democratic presidential nominee. So, I figured it would be no time before updated signage would be rolled out.
But week after week, the lack of official political campaign signs across Philadelphia was notable. Even when I enlisted my social media troops to be my eyes and ears all over the city, they, too, came back empty. Had someone forgotten to yell, “Stop the presses!” at all the sign-making printer shops when Biden bowed out, I wondered. Or was everyone just waiting for Harris to choose her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz? I could only imagine her campaign scrambling after the historic presidential pivot.
Meanwhile, DIY displays continued to bloom on front lawns just about everywhere as I took my search on the road this week, from the front lawn of Roxanne Veasley’s West Philadelphia home along a busy stretch of City Avenue near 71st Street — where she erected 30-inch letters to spell out “KAMALA 2024” after her 84-year-old mother, Jane Green, called to tell her, “Kamala’s gonna be president!” — to the side of David Sutton’s Mount Airy home, where a banner that lights up the night sky simply reads: “VOTE.”
On a wooden fence just steps away from my first DIY discovery, I found a charming “Kamala & The Coach” sign devised by the equally charming Barbara Levitt, an 81-year-old yoga instructor and designer. Levitt got tired of waiting for official signage that spoke to her creative spirit, so she fashioned her own, adorned with the Om symbol and lotuses — the latter a reference to the Sanskrit meaning of Harris’ first name.
“I’m so excited about this on so many levels,” said Levitt, a usually sound sleeper who was surprised to find herself restless for two days after Harris was endorsed.
It was a sentiment echoed over and over again by Philly’s politically conscious artisans — many in my neck of Northwest Philly, who said they were prepared to do what needed to be done to keep Donald Trump out of office, including voting for Biden despite the growing calls for him to step aside after his troubling debate performance.
But when Harris ascended to the top of the ticket, an irrepressible enthusiasm and energy inspired them to tap into their arts-and-crafts skills in a way a few people I interviewed said they hadn’t since grade school.
On the 7700 block of Ardleigh Street, Samantha Erickson, a teacher, wasn’t sure she’d be putting up any political signs this year. But when a neighbor across the street hung a big banner that read “Trump 2024 — The Revenge Tour,” she felt obligated to show passersby that sentiment wasn’t representative of everyone on their close-knit block.
And when Biden dropped out, Erickson took inspiration from other signs she’d seen and, with respect, modified hers with some delicately aligned blue electrical tape to show that the presidential race may have changed but her support hadn’t. Her neighbor Courtney Malley got equally creative.
“The first thing I did was fold my flag in half,” Malley said when Erickson and I stopped over. She also used tape to cover Biden’s name, which her three teenage children, unhappy with Biden’s treatment of the Israel-Gaza war, heartily approved.
Over the neighborhood border in Mount Airy, I found myself unexpectedly moved by an old Biden/Harris sign outside a Wadsworth Avenue home that seemed to lift Harris while showing her respect and affection for Biden with a strategically placed red heart and number 4 so that the sign now reads, “Biden 4 Harris.”
That was exactly what Susan Kaufman, a writer, was going for, she told me. As excited as she was to vote for a capable woman who might become our country’s first Black and South Asian female president, Kaufman also wanted to show her appreciation for a man who “chose country over party.”
In the course of my travels, I stopped in at the Nicetown Harris for President campaign office. There, on the windows and walls of a storefront on the corner of West Venango and North 17th Streets that had been dedicated to Biden/Harris, a standing-room-only crowd of supporters gathered for rousing pep talks. A table was stacked with a variety of hot-off-the-presses choices: “Harris for President.” “Pennsylvania for Harris.” “Harris/Walz.” “Let’s win this.” And my personal favorite: “Kamala.”
Just Kamala — like Beyoncé or Rihanna or Sade or any other one-name celebrity.
After looking over the options, I chatted up Lauren Myers, a global DEI, HR, and talent consultant, and a member of Harris’ sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, who was at the event with her 18-year-old daughter Sarah-Julia Marion, an incoming Hampton University freshman who planned to cast her first-ever vote in a presidential election for Harris in November. The mother and daughter from Mount Airy snagged a handful of posters they’d waste no time showcasing and offering to friends, family, and anyone else who crossed their paths.
In fact, when I visited them the next day, they’d already adorned their home’s front window with several newly acquired signs. And there was Myers, offering one to her smiling mail carrier: “Let me know if you need one.”
Mission accomplished, I thought.